Spent the night last night formatting and uploading three manuscripts to be published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.  I am finally learning how to manipulate my artwork and John’s photos in my basic Photoshop program (PSE9).  I don’t have it down perfect yet, but I’m working on it.

I love the photo that John took of me walking with my leather shoulder bag on the streets of New York City.  He then played around with it in his complete Photoshop program.  It’s the perfect cover for this particular story.  I do have an alternate photograph that would be just as good a cover—a bit more suggestive.

It will be interesting to see if this narrative finds an audience.

This narrative is an unusual format for me as a writer.  It chronicles the tragic relationship between two men who meet online in a chat room and then in person in New York City.  They quickly fall in love, but the relationship is doomed due to a number of complications.  First and foremost is the fact that one of the men already has a lover and is in a relationship.

The narrative reads in a series of “Moments” that encapsulate the progression and demise of the relationship that lasted only for a matter of months.

I would like for a larger number of readers to have access to The Prologue to Book One: The Secret Book of Moolstery in my five volume epic heroic saga: THE LAY OF MOEL EYRIS: The Saga of the Bear’s Son.  Even though the Prologue can be read at my website making it available as a digital book on Amazon may reach more readers.   We’ll see.

The opening quotation of The Secret Book of Moolstery:

Manus argentea quam manus ferrea melior est.

A silver hand is better than an iron hand.

For those who live by it and upon it, the sea is the ultimate reality in their existence.  Farley Mowat, This Rock Within the Sea: A Heritage Lost

Between the faraway past, and that time which lies near to us, there came to one of the Twilight Realms, a remote archipelago called Moel Eyris (Islands of the Maols), a vicious horde of invaders from the Faärlands filled with hatred, cruelty, and of wickedness. Though the islands were so threatened and uncertain, there yet remained strong, determined Islanders, or Eyrlenders, who knew the right and the truth and lived according to what they knew. And a boy whose fate would determine the fate of all.

The Lay of Moel Eyris: The Saga of the Bear’s Son tells the story of a prophecy that concerns a boy named Caelean Artair Faolán who “was born very old at a very young age.”

The Prologue to the story begins with a perilous journey, being made under the cloak of darkness, and the added protection of a thick, magical mist—dragons’ breath.   Brom and Hanne Powys are fleeing for their lives, for the life of their son, Caelean. And for the very life of the islands.

The Lay of Moel Eyris is an epic heroic quest that falls into the category of ‘motif of folklore’ called Bear’s Son Cycle.   The Bear’s Son Cycle is concerned with a baby who was “abandoned” by its parents. The baby grows into a boy who lives apart from his homeland, Moel Eyris—the Islands on the Edge—as they struggled through the most dangerous and blackest years of the archipelago’s history.

Finally, the “scenes” that were used to record the videos of me reading this narrative is available for readers to read for themselves.  Writing the narrative in a series of scenes was an experiment that allowed me to ‘hear’ the story and make adjustments and revisions as necessary.

The Kidnapping of the Boy with Red Hair tells the story as to how Maol Rudha, the most revered and powerful Penkyrdd of the Cymry of Maols, came to the “Islands on the Edge”.  This is the background story that will not be part of the published series that will comprise the saga.

Maols are the revered mythographers who reside in the ancient, isolated settlement called Moolstery.

The word mole has several meanings and many spellings. To an off-islander “mole” is the only spelling that he can think of, and is a word that only has one of two meanings. But to an Eyrlender the word “mole” has a rich and diverse history and is most closely connected to a secret messenger.

But, the word maol is an entirely different matter altogether.

By self-publishing these three manuscripts I am experimenting with marketing and promotion possibilities through this blog, Twitter, FaceBook, Youtube, and my website.  All these social media avenues are interconnected.  I hope that by posting the news regarding the books that followers and readers just might actually take a look at them.

It’s the Grand Experiment, you might say.